Google says it can’t fix Pixel Watches, please just buy a new one | With no official repair program and no parts, broken Pixel Watches are just e-waste.::With no official repair program and no parts, broken Pixel Watches are just e-waste.
On the other hand, a Garmin Fenix can be easily opened with an inexpensive tool and replacement parts are easily found online.
Garmin watches look amazing. I just wish they had more smartwatch capabilities. I’d love complications on the watch face, and I feel like I should be able to start the assistant with a hotword.
I’m not sure if the Google Watch can do the latter.
On the other side of things. I’m super happy that garmin watches don’t have more smartwatch capabilities. Their laser focus on sports wearable is what keeps them massively competitive there and keeps me on weeks of battery life instead of hours of battery life
I totally understand that. They look perfect for their target market.
As far as I know, they’re the only wearable that does realtime stroke/length tracking for swimming, which is really cool. If I was more serious about exercise, that’d be the perfect
excusereason to buy one.That’s exactly why I have my Garmin Descent.
It’s a dive computer, with basic smart watch features like notifications and general health tracking which are the only ones I need.
I happily paid 1k for it.
I’ve got an OG Garmin vivoactive. Besides the naming bullshit of this being vivoactive and there now being a “vivoactive 1”, it’s great. It’s a sidegrade to thebpebble, which I never thought I’d find. So now I just swap between this and the pebble when the mood suits me.
Love Garmin smartwatches.
I’ve been wondering what to get when my beloved Pebble dies. Good to know!
Check out the pebble communities online though, even the subreddit. There’s new batteries you can get, and guides to repair. Barring that, there’s always someone looking for even dead pebbles.
I’m leaning this direction because I don’t really use any smart features in my watch. Just my fitness shit.
Any recommendations on Garmin watches for a guy who likes to bike/bike but not crazy sports level enthusiast?
Whichever one you like the look of and is cheap. Garmin watches are just divided into styling and features. If you don’t need specific features you can just get the cheapest one that fits your styling.
I started out with a vivomove because I liked the hybrid look (real watch hands) and only needed basic health stuff. Did notifications which is all I really care about for smart stuff.
There’s plenty of watch faces with cool shit on them in the store, same as with Google
And having had watches that do respond to “hey Google” they were super iffy and inconsistent. Buttons are easier to avoid frustration, which the Garmin has.
As far as “smartwatch capabilities” I haven’t missed anything from my Wear watch. I certainly don’t miss charging it every day or having it die by 5pm because I actually used it
I’m charging my Garmin this morning. Haven’t charged it since Sunday… a week ago Sunday
Buttons on smart watches are a must. I really appreciated them on my Pebble.
The Venu has 3. Forerunner 5. I use both (buttons and screens, not both devices)
Their customer support is also aces too. I’ve got a Fenix 6s and the battery is going out on it, and they’re replacing it for free. No questions or fuss. Just a shipping label.
For as expensive as they are, I’ve been extremely happy with them. When this replacement dies in another 3+ years I’ll definitely be getting another Garmin.
Google support for literally anything is non existent. Same could be said about Meta.
I am slowly shifting away from Google. Gmail and Google Photos is going to be the hardest. :/
For those thinking of moving away from Gmail… I strongly recommend buying your own domain name so you actually own your address and can switch e-mail services whenever you want without needing a new e-mail address. Hell, I’d recommend this even if you’re planning on staying with Gmail for a while.
Honestly, aside from having to point people at your new e-mail address… Gmail is not particularly hard to move away from, especially if you already use an external mail client. I don’t really miss it, anyway. The only pain point I experience is that if somebody sends you a Google Doc / Sheet you need a Google account to edit it, but that’s not a huge concern for me personally.
I’m self hosting my personal e-mail right now, and it’s pretty great if you know how to do that stuff. Super cheap to host, and I can have as many aliases and send as many e-mails as I want. It’s not for the faint of heart, but it’s very doable if you already host your own stuff. Otherwise there’s a bunch of e-mail services like Proton (kind of expensive, and a little annoying in that it’s not just IMAP), Tutanota (dunno much about it), Fastmail, etc… But it’s also worth mentioning that if you have a domain / VPS already your VPS provider and your registrar may both provide e-mail services that you can use… And if you just want to get out of Google and you have an iCloud+ account already (which is very possible if you have an iPhone and wanted more iCloud storage, but otherwise it’s $0.99/mo) you can also use iCloud+ for e-mail with a custom domain.
Proton if you want email, privacy and cloud storage.
Edit I use murena and it comes with cloid storage and online only office suite
Already thinking about proton:)
I recommend tutanota, cheap clean and few frills.
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LoL…so you gotta pay for a service? That’s just crazy!?!
S/
try with apple
I was considering this on and off, but never really attempted to do this.
Biggest dealbreaker was lack of USB-C cable, but here are few other issues:
- No easy & free way to sideload apps.
- No ability to install 3rd party OS.
- No proper files management.
- Clipboard and files sharing is still a joke. It works, but is uncomfortable as fuck.
- Lack of cusotmization almost for every aspect of a phone.
- Inability to self-repair. Apple made it harder on purpose.
- Overpriced smartphones & gadgets.
- Can’t simply upload & download files from my PC (both Windows & Linux).
- Shitty media format support.
- Apple wallet does not support discount cards.
- Buying an Apple device means I would literally support anti-consumer company with shitty behavior towards its users.
I have an iPhone, but I will say for me the biggest deal breaker with it is absolutely not the lack of USB-C support (though that sucks and THANK GOD they’re switching)… The lack of sideloading for apps is a much bigger problem IMO, because it’s really hard for free and open source apps to even exist on iOS (which makes paid apps, subscriptions, and advertising much more common). Honestly, I’d care a lot less about the lack of sideloading if it wasn’t for the other inconvenient facts, like the a $100/year developer license to publish anything on the App Store, or the fact that you pretty much need to have a Mac to develop for the iPhone… The $100/year developer license is just a death sentence for any open source apps and hobby / passion project apps. It’s not thaaaat much money, but it’s a lot to pay on top of putting in a bunch of free work to build an app in the first place.
Inability to self-repair. Apple made it harder on purpose.
Can you repair android phone nowadays? Afaik, they are just as hard as apple
Clipboard and files sharing is still a joke. It works, but is uncomfortable as fuck.
Never had a problem
No easy & free way to sideload apps.
this should come before March 2024
Overpriced smartphones & gadgets.
True for the gadgets, smartphones are just in line with other android phones but at least the phone is supported for 5-6 years and it doesn’t go to shit after a few years of use
Shitty media format support.
Preach.
Buying an Apple device means I would literally support anti-consumer company with shitty behavior towards its users
Then buy no phone and remove google, etc. For a computer, buy a System76 et similia -but do not use Nvidia/AMD/intel GPU/CPU; no Samsung for SSD, no Intel network card etc.
Apple wallet does not support discount cards.
But you can?Maybe it’s new, idk
Can’t simply upload & download files from my PC (both Windows & Linux).
True. I use iCloud webApp on Linux or transfer the files on Mega
No proper files management.
It works for the most basic use cases
No ability to install 3rd party OS.
True, but on the other hand iOS is the reason you would buy an iPhone. I’m a power user on desktop but I can’t be bothered on mobile: back when I had an android, I used the stock apps too and never did anything “”“weird”“”. I’m a desktop user throughout, so if I have to do anything I will just use my PC instead of relying on my phone
– That said, if you don’t mind paying:
- try protonMail, there is the auto import and forward for gmail;
- MEGA has a sync feature for the photos. I use it but on iOS it’s not that great, for example the photos never get deleted but just uploaded;
So you basically confirmed my points 😅
Never said you were wrong lol
If you value freedom over comfort, then obviously an iPhone doesn’t cut it
freedom over comfort
With freedom comes the confort. It’s me who should decide what I need, not Apple. Apple should adjust to my needs, not me to Apple.
With freedom comes comfort
lol, tell me that when you use a banking app outside the Google play services
Freedom [to install your own OS on a mobile device] for sure won’t bring me any comfort, and in fact it’s something I don’t care about.
Beside, it’s a naive take: Apple doesn’t force you to buy its phones so you can just go wherever. And I doubt most people who buy an android do so for the freedom to install their own OS
Their support is infamously hard to contact, they discontinue projects very often, and now this. Google makes some very interesting products, but there would have to be a huge shift at the company, which won’t happen, for me to buy them.
Google is first and foremost an ad company. Everything else they do is only to improve the worth of their ad business.
My pixel had issues with the screen (p7p) contacted google, within a couple of days I had an advance replacement device in my hands and a return label for the faulty device.
My watch is giving me issues currently so I’m planning on hitting up support about that too, as it’s not within what I expected from the watch (won’t connect via bt after a month or so, requiring a factory reset).
In AUS we have great consumer protections, if my watch continues on the way it is currently I’ll be returning it for a full refund.
Unfortunately that huge shift would require a complete change in Google’s corporate culture and that’s not gonna happen.
I had my own experience with their customer support after purchasing 2 Pixel 6’s. They were utter garbage. Both had the cellular connectivity problem and the fingerprint sensors were completely useless. Those sensors failed 100% of the time in brightly lit stores. There’s no way in hell that Google was unaware of those problems, and they were in fact well documented (but not resolved) after six months and one major software “fix”.
Lucky for me a request for help on Reddit resulted in multiple people saying they despised their Pixels and to return the damn things before it was too late.
Do you mean Pixel 7 by chance? I’ve heard problems with it’s sensor. I have the 6 and haven’t noticed anything. Just curious mostly.
Pixel 6. From Android Authority:
Hate is a strong word to use in any context, so I’ll try my best to avoid that language. I very strongly dislike the Pixel 6’s fingerprint sensor.
Glad your experience is better than ours. Maybe Google fixed the problem.
They immediately lost my business with no public followup on 911 dialer bugs on Pixels. Plus there is ALWAYS a huge hardware problem on flagship Pixels, every single generation. Went iPhone SE and really why would I ever move back?
I’ve had a lot of pixels in my family and the only one that had major issues was the Pixel 4.
I think you may be buying into overblown anecdotal nonsense.
There were multiple public reddit posts about a Pixel 911 dialer bug - NOT the Teams one that we already had, but a new one. No follow-up on that and from what I’ve heard it’s more productive to scream into the void than contact Google support, so I picked up and left. Glad I did too, Android is death by a thousand laggy cuts compared to iOS. For me, the choice was simple: I need rock solid 911 support, immediate attention on critical bugs, and a phone that didn’t lag. iPhone is the only major flagship that can do everything on that list
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Same with the Google Nest Hub.
It cost me around $600 and has a known splash-screen issue which I just woke up to one morning.
No fix available when it happens. Nothing I did caused it. I just had to bin it.
It’s either planned obsolescence or just shitty design.
Companies should have fines for at least as much as the revenue they generated with those devices. Designed obsolescence is something that needs to be *abandoned, even if it hurts really bad financially.
Even simpler: If you sell it, and it breaks or becomes useless, you’re expected to take it back and dispose of it responsibly. Electronics retailers can charge a deposit, just like the supermarket does for beer and Coke.
Just imagine if things worked that way —
Find the broken husk of an iPod Shuffle on the beach? Take it to an Apple Store; they give you five bucks.
Find a roadkill Dell laptop on the side of the road? (I did earlier this summer.) Take it to any big-box store that sells Dell laptops; they give you five bucks.
Pixel Watch turned into e-waste? Mail it to Google; they give you five bucks. (Probably on your Google Pay account, yeah, but that’s better than nothing.)
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i bought a P-Watch due to the circular aesthetic, have been wearing mine since release. it’s “OK” but last week i fell on my bicycle and scratched up the watch face pretty badly, so QUITE annoying that there is no repair program.
doesn’t matter though, switching to a classic Cassio watch soon anyways. “Smart Watches” aren’t that helpful for me, ultimately i don’t understand the appeal. it’s just PHONE ON WRIST, seems like another way to “PLUG INTO THE MATRIX”
I wear my smart watch exclusively at work because when I’m on or around heavy machinery, I need to know if that little alert was something important or not. Otherwise I’d be checking my phone every five minutes. But I don’t have to stop or slow down to check my wrist.
Never understood the appeal of Dick Tracey’s phone watch, still don’t understand them now that the are real.
Yeah fuck all of that.
Pretty clear stuff like this is why we’re speed running to a dystopian future. Hopefully Googles profits can survive. /s
If you are a google product adopter in 2023 then you deserved to be relieved of your money.
Also the same applies with Xbox Series consoles. Mine stopped working and Micro$oft doesn’t fix it. They tell me to pay almost full price for a refurbished one… or buy a brand new one.
What’s a warranty worth then?
Sorry, maybe I was not clear with my post: they replace your console while within the warranty period (2 years before January 2022, 3 years after). If something happens past the warranty time (like the console stops turning on by itself, like mine), you’re screwed! They don’t fix it, neither sell parts. And even worst, since the drive, NVME and motherboard are all serialised, you can’t just swap them for other good parts.
Fucking scum of a company. Like someone said before, these kind of companies should be fined until the ground!
It’s shit like this that’s the reason I haven’t gotten another pixel. My pix 5a died in within a year, I sent it to a Google certified repair shop, they couldn’t fix it, concluded it needed to be sent to Google.
Once it got to Google they claimed it had water damage. It took me 3 months to go through all the bullshit and get a new phone from them. I had gotten an Azus Zenfone 9 by that point.
Pixel Buds are the same way. IIRC from a teardown vid, those earbuds (and I’m guessing most of their competitors’ too) are designed to be quasi-disposable in this way. They’re glued together, the only way to open them up destroys them, warranty support consists of replacing defective earbuds.
This business model does create an e-waste issue… More lithium ion batteries ending up in landfills, more gold extracted from components by kids in developing nations burning them and breathing the carcinogens…
“But… but… Apple USB 2 ports!”
